Not Your Mother’s Oatmeal

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet up in Santa Rosa with a friend from Southern California. It’s almost a three hour drive for me but a lot closer than Southern California so I was excited to get together with her.

It was her 65th birthday and she was having to spend it at a work conference. She came up a couple of days early to do a little celebrating and asked me to join her for part of the weekend.

After a rocky start, including a three hour wait to get a taxi from the airport and a less then suitable room at the hotel, she finally had accommodations she was happy with, had been out on the town for the evening, and had a good night’s sleep by the time I arrived.

She needs two hip replacements as well as a knee replacement and it’s hard for her to get around so we never left the resort. Since our goal was to visit and catch up, that didn’t matter. We did manage to make it to the spa for a fabulous massage.

Flamingo Porridge is not Your Mother’s Oatmeal

To make things as easy as possible for her, we ate our meals in her room. Plus, we both love room service. She raved about the oats that she had for breakfast the day before I got there but oatmeal is not my thing so I passed on that. When I wake up in the morning I don’t say, “Oh yummy oatmeal.” I don’t care for cold cereal and hot cereal is only worth eating if it’s loaded with butter and brown sugar. Not exactly part of my Weight Watchers program. I need my protein for breakfast so I had eggs benedict.

She enjoyed this concoction so much, she ordered it again the morning I was there and insisted that I try it. Well, now I can say, “Yum porridge.” Turns out this is not your average oatmeal. It’s a combination of steel cut oats, barley, quinoa and chia seeds topped with some fresh fruit and house made granola. It was as delicious as she said it was. It didn’t need any additives: no butter, no brown sugar, no milk or cream. I later found out why!

I was so impressed with this dish that once I got home I contacted Michael Goodloe, Executive Chef at the Flamingo Conference Resort & Spa to see if he would part with the recipe and allow me to share it with my readers. I was very happy when he agreed.

Now that you’ve read the recipe, you see why it needed no additives. As good as this is, it is a bit complicated for me for a morning dish so I am working on an overnight slow cooker version that fits better into my Weight Watchers program. My first attempt was pretty good but I’m sure it can be improved upon. Watch for it on the blog.